


No Competition

by HerbertBest



Category: Jolene - Dolly Parton (Song)
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Bad Flirting, Character Study, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Mild Angst, resolved angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:34:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27627551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HerbertBest/pseuds/HerbertBest
Summary: Jolene flirts with a lot of folks down at the Loose Moose, but Mary's special.And Mary doesn't seem to be aware of her own specialness, thanks to her uncouth dork of a boyfriend.It's all bound to come to a head, but when it does it's not in the way Jolene anticipates it...
Relationships: Jolene/Narrator (Jolene), Man/Narrator (Jolene)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 64
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	No Competition

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lady Sarai (lady_sarai)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_sarai/gifts).



Jolene attracts sideways glances everywhere she goes, and at this point she’s quite used to it. She’s a knockout redhead with a great sense of humor, and that can be anyone’s type when they’re in the right mood. 

She uses it to her advantage by plying her smiles and her laugh as a bartender. The Loose Moose has seen a lot of action since she had started working there, her tips had always been steady, and people had started requesting her sympathetic ear, her easy way with a tequila sunrise.

But none of her customers are as interesting to her as Mary.

Mary is small and sweet, plump, with her hair tied back in a ponytail that. Jolene knows she works downtown at the candy factory, sorting peanut butter cups and chocolate bars into seconds and first-rate piles, stamping on labels, and listening to the gears whine all day. Mary comes into the Loose Moose in her uniform and drinks beer, and she basks in the sunshine that is Jolene with a grateful, wide-eyed joy.

But Jolene knows special the second she sees it – and knows when special isn’t being appreciated. So she smiles and flirts a little harder, her fingers gracing Mary’s arm and hand – and Mary leans up into her hands, blossoming again, a sunflower on the bloom.

It doesn’t mean anything, of course. Mary has a boyfriend, and her boyfriend is the kind of fellow with a big mouth who flirts with everyone and everyone that crosses his path.

Jolene is immune to men like him at this point. She laughs at his jokes and lights up his flaming cocktails and pours him beer. When he flexes his football knowledge, she pretends to be impressed (as if she doesn’t have season tickets for the Jaguars!). He calls Mary “his little filly” and slaps her on the bottom when he does well during trivia nights. 

Jolene hates him, but - charming as she is – he doesn’t seem to notice.

In fact, Bob’s so oblivious to her nausea that he seems to be on another planet, interpreting their conversations through three different translation guides. “Y’know, if you ever wanna have one of those lil’ old ménage a thaws with someone, we are both willing and able,” he says, the night after the Jaguars win the SuperBowl and everyone is drunk out of their minds.

“Now, Bob,” says Mary, her tone warning.

“What, baby? You always wanted to have one of those, and Jolene’s the prettiest girl in French Lick, ain’t she?” 

Mary flushed. 

“Now, Bob, you know I can’t leave early. I mean, me? Give up all this glitter?” She asked, gesturing to the Loose Moose, its buzzing neon and polished, sticky countertop, the always-fuzzy TV and the Mrs. Pacman game that kids kept tattooing with obscenities.

And Bob laughs it off. Mary grumbles. Time passes by that way.

It’s summer when Mary tears into the bar alone, her eyes filled with tears and she reaches over the bar and grabs Jolene’s hands.

“Can I talk to you?” she begs.

“Of course, honey! What’s eating you?” Jolene asks, as they duck away into a private corner and Mary hunkers down.

She takes a deep breath, her eyes big, green pools of confused hurt. “Are you thinking of going with Bob?”

Jolene raises an eyebrow. “Good God, no. No offense, sweetie, but your boyfriend ain’t my type.”

“He’s not going to be my boyfriend for much longer if I don’t get some answers from you,” says Mary. “We got into a fight tonight, and he told me that you’ve been making eyes at him. Do you wanna be with him, or was he just kidding me?”

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t…”

Mary plunges ahead, “please don’t take Bob,” said Mary. “He’s all I’ve ever known, and I love him so much.”

A pause, then a quick lancing of Jolene’s heart. “Oh, honey,” Jolene says. Her soft, high laugh is a bubble of effervescent happiness. “I’m not interested in your man, if that’s what you’ve been thinking.”

Mary sobs, a choppy sound, and Jolene offers a tissue, takes her free hand again. “Oh. So he lied.”

Jolene reaches over and squeezes. “I’m not the cheating type. But – honey, should I be honest? This is why you deserve better. And you do deserve so much better than a fella who’d say something like that to you.”

A slow nod from the woman, and Jolene’s happy she’s getting through to her. “I’ve been with him since we were in high school,” Mary says, with a sniffle. “But he’s been getting ruder over the past few years – meaner, too.”

“Well, high school isn’t always forever love. If I’d stayed with the fella I thought I was in love with in high school, I’d be Mrs. Jolene Dupree right now. Living in a little shack in Louisiana, trying to make a go of a boat rental place, probably six kids deep. I’m glad I picked what I picked,” says Jolene.

“I don’t know what to do,” says Mary. “But you’re really a helping me, Jolene. I never thought of it that way before.”

 _Good. It should be about you,_ Jolene thinks. _You’re so sweet and good and pretty, and you oughta know that you deserve the moon._

Mary gets up, wiping her eyes, putting Jolene’s tissue in her front pocket. “I’m gonna think about what you said. I can probably make it on my own…and with my friends.” She squeezes Jolene’s fingers, and her touch lingers for a minute or two, before she withdraws.

Jolene’s little heart flutters like a sparrow as she smiles at a retreating Mary.

$$$$$

“Well, it’s over,” Mary says, three weeks later at the peak of happy hour. She comes in wearing a bright red and green checkered shirt and jean shorts that draw Jolene’s eyes down her long, tanned legs. “He finally took the last of his shit and got out today. You’re looking at a free woman.”

“And that means your first beer of the night is on the house,” Jolene says. 

Mary sits down at the bar and grins at her. “And I wouldn’t have thought about it at all, had you not stepped in to help me.”

“It wasn’t no trouble,” says Jolene. 

“You ought to take your advice out into the world,” Mary says, twisting the sweaty top off of her beer and taking an icy pull.

“I’ve been thinking about fiction lately,” Jolene says with a shrug.

“Do you have a story for me?” Mary asks, sipping down her beer.

Something about Mary’s smile – the way she’s sitting there, in her boots and shirt – makes Jolene take a deep breath and take a flying leap. “Have you ever heard of the story of the girl who fell in love with the gal who hung the moon?” asks Jolene.

Mary leans forward, across the bar, and kisses her lips. “No,” she says, and settles down, those eyes of hers twinkling brightly. “But I’d love to hear it.”

Jolene smiles, and a new story begins.


End file.
